Charles Williams : The New Christian Year

Saturday after Ascension Day

What is God?  No less the punishment of the perverse than the glory of the humble.  We may say He is reason and sweet reasonableness directing itself with fixed unchanging aim, and everywhere operative.   Any perversity in collision with that must of necessity be confounded.  Of course, all swelling pride and unseemliness which dashes itself against that must be broken to shivers.

St. Bernard: On Consideration.

What then is God?  That without which nothing is.  A thing can no more be without him than he can be without himself.

St. Bernard: On Consideration.

Love is the divine substance; for John says God is Love . . . Thus substantial love gives accidental love.

St. Bernard: On the Song of Songs.

I love because I love; I love in order to love.

St. Bernard: On the Song of Songs.

We seek truth in ourselves, in our neighbours, and in its own nature: in ourselves, judging ourselves; in our neighbours, sympathizing with their ills; in its own nature, contemplating with a pure heart.

St. Bernard: The Steps of Humility.

1st Tuesday in Lent

The darkness is not hidden even from itself; though it sees naught else it sees itself.  The works of darkness follow it, and there is no hiding place from it, not even in the darkness.  This is "the worm that dieth not"—the memory of the past.  Once it gets within, or rather is born within though sin, there it stays and never by any means can be plucked out.  It never ceases to gnaw the conscience; feeding on it as on food that never can be consumed it prolongs the life of misery.  I shudder as I contemplate this biting worm, this never-dying death.  I shudder at the thought of this being the victim of this living death, this dying life.

St. Bernard: On Consideration.

Septugaesima Wednesday

What is Septugaesima?

It is written, "Tha Angel who spake in me."  And yet there is a difference even here.  The Angel is in us suggesting what is good, not bestowing it: stimulating us to goodness, not creating goodness.  God is so in us as to give the grace and infuse it into us; or rather, so in us that He Himself is infused and partaken of, so that one need not fear to say that He is one with our substance.  For you know, "He that is joined unto God is one spirit."  The Angle is in the soul as a comrade, God as life.

St. Bernard: On Consideration.

5th Wednesday After The Epiphany (February 8th, 2017)

"I will reprove thee and set before thine eyes what thou hast done."  It is the Lord who thus spoke; all that opposes Him must of necessity oppose itself; so that at last there will be the complaint, "O thou watcher of men, why hast thou set me as a mark for thee, so that I am a burden to myself?" . . . Nothing can contradict God and be consistent with itself; on the contrary, whosoever shall be reproved by God shall be reproved also by himself.

St. Bernard: On Consideration.

1st Saturday after Christmas Week

Woe to wills opposed!  Surely they only bring upon themselves the penalty of their own reluctance.  What penalty is so severe as to be ever choosing what shall never be, ever refusing what shall never cease to be?  Is there any hell like a will under his necessity of choosing and refusing, so that whichever way it moves misery must be as constant an attendant as perversity?  As long as eternity shall last it will not get its choice; and what it refuses it shall no less through eternity endure.  And such a will meets with its due deserts; he who is never disposed for what becomes him, should never attain to what delights him.

St. Bernard: On Consideration.

Christmas Week Tuesday

It shines everywhere, though not to all.  In a word, it shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehends it not.  The light sees the darkness, for with it seeing and shining are the same thing; but it is not in turn seen by the darkness, because the darkness comprehends it not.

St. Bernard: On Consideration.